Could you explain what the problems are? I don't have a strong opinion either way, but you can buy hydrogen cars. In the city where I live there are hydrogen buses and garbage trucks and they seem to do fine?
So you think, well fine, we can just generate it on site via electrolysis — alas, hydrogen actively destroys metal containers via embrittlement. Not so much in hydrogen gas, but any process where you’re running chemical or electrolytic reactions;
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42154-020-00096-z
You can buy one of only a few models of car, and those are only sold in absurdly small numbers.
For trucks there are more trials going on but real mass production of hydrogen trucks isn't really a thing for a few more years (and many expect those will be further delayed).
There are many reasons for this. Just something as simple as count how many different sub-systems are required between a BEV and a FCEV. In addition that basic disadvantage, the end to end energy in efficiency is worse, so its more expensive. In addition to that, the infrastructure required is about 10-100x more expensive.
Tesla as one start up rolled out a global (or lets say in the developed world) EV charging infrastructure. The same amount of money invested in hydrogen infrastructure like not even have resulted in enough locations to charge the whole West coast. And because you can't charge at home, you need many more such locations.
So really end to end it makes no sense pretty much from any direction you look at it and has been absolutely destroyed in the market. Some people still have hope for trucks, but there too the trends are pretty clear.
Electric still comes out ahead despite this handicap.
Right. This is the main issue for us for going electric. We barely use the car, but when we use it, it is often for longer distances (visiting my in-laws, who live in another country, holidays). Having to 'refuel' longer and more often is very inconvenient.
I know there are some extreme people who basically push and pie in a bottle if they have to, but most people don't travel that way.
Modern EV can refuel large part of the battery in like 15min.
There is still an advantage, but it gets smaller with every generation of vehicle.
I've traveled between the bay area and Los Angeles (a six hour drive) many times with a large variety or different drivers. The longest break was a 20-30 minute stop the Greyhound bus makes at a Burger King in the middle of nowhere. But the bus also, doesn't take the shortest route for some reason.
In a private car, the more passengers the greater the chance that someone will ask for a bio break. But if it's just me driving, or I'm the only passenger, the trip is typically a non-stop push. Often without stopping for even 5 minutes at an overpriced gas station in the middle.
Using a current gen EV introduces nearly an hour delay each way when you factor in range limitations and excessive charging times compared to gas.
I expect this will be a solved issue by 2030
If the oil companies chose to expand out their infra on the highway system with hydrogen, it may make more sense with long haul, big truck routes.
Battery power scales more proportionally to weight than hydrogen.
> Because it is so tiny, hydrogen can squeeze through the smallest of gaps. This is not so great a problem at ambient temperatures and pressures, but at super-chilled temperatures and high pressures, hydrogen easily oozes out of any available opening.
Elon Musk responded to this article with the following tweet [1], which to my understanding is a pretty reasonable take:
> Accurate assessment. Raptor design started out using H2, but switched to CH4. Latter is best combo of high efficiency & ease of operation imo. Delta-v difference between H2 & CH4 is small for most missions, because CH4 tank is much smaller & no insulation is needed.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/years-after-shuttle-...
This is the thing... there is no "one size fits all" but the nay sayers look at hydrogen and say "nah too hard for anything". They're wrong. Hydrogen will be huge in the NEAR future... it just wont be a silver bullet.
Is what fans of hydrogen have been arguing for 30 years.
The world finally has motivation to get out of that rut. Dominant powers will make hydrogen work for them because thats how a corrupt capitalist society works.
Well, H2 is an "also ran" at this point: it has lower energy efficiency (losing the majority of input energy in the cycle from electrolysis -> compression -> fuel cell -> electric), it requires more expensive and practically non-existent infrastructure, it's theoretical range advantages are negated by the need to have a small COPV bomb on board, forcing the longest range Hidrogen cars have less range than the equivalent electric, they are more expensive and complex, requiring expensive, platinum based catalysts, pushing the prices of H2 models into a multiple over the equivalent BEV. There is nothing that H2 can do that BEV can't do better, with the exception of fast refueling, which is becoming less and less of an issue.
For cars the race with BEV is irredeemably lost, and even for trucks the hydrogen industry needs to perform some technological miracle to stay in the game.
HN rate limits my replies you can read my sibling comment if you’d like more information.
granted, most of it is made via non-renewable dirty methods... but there is VAST sums of money pouring into Green Hydrogen. Its going to become dominant in very few years. 5-8 is my guess.